I watched Interstellar over the New Year. Absolutely loved it.

It’s an epic sci-fi film set in a dystopian future where humanity is embroiled in a catastrophic blight and famine. The film follows a group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole that mysteriously appeared near Saturn as they search for a new home for humankind.

Notwithstanding the fact that the 5th dimension appeared (my brain hurt trying to understand this) and Mathew McConaughey was a (sort of) ghost who helped his daughter save the world (spoiler alert), what stood out was the way in which humans and technology interacted. TARS, PLEX, CASE and KIPP. And all with adjustable setting levels for human emotions and language, humour etc., plus some unbelievably brilliant landscape scenes set on other planets.

So, let’s rewind a few millennia to the now somewhat humdrum technology of today… At the back end of 2023, Royal Mail (remember them?) launched their first permanent drone delivery postal service in The Orkneys islands; the stunning yet windswept chunk of rocks beyond John O’ Groats. Regularly tempestuous seas and an uneconomic service to this remote part of the world sees this as an innovative plan, although quite what some of the most isolated sheep and cattle on the planet think of this we’ll never know. And one suspects that in 2013, those working for Jezz Bezos felt the same, for it is alleged that he said to his camera crew he would give them half his fortune if they could guess his next invention. Alas, no one got near as the sci-fi-esque flying drones appeared from behind them.

Ten years on, and recent data suggests that the number of packages delivered by drone increased by more than 80 percent from 2022 to 2023, reaching almost 875,000 deliveries worldwide and the million mark looks set to be topped in early 2024. Delivery drones are already used for medicines, aid, contraception and farming seeds to many of the less affluent and least accessible parts of the world, and one can only see this exponentially increasing. Alas, weapons and general military options are also very much in evidence these days.

But we must now go back even further to nearly 100 years ago and settle down in front of The Rocket Post film in the Hebridean wilderness of the wartime 1930’s, where on stormy nights, ‘the incessant sea clashes against the unyielding shorelines of ancient rocks and where the sentinels of the Harris mountains stand resolute against a frothing and angry sky.’ This is our planet at its most elemental and where the photographer, Richard Cooke described as a place ‘where God washes out his paintbrushes.’ This is also a place which rewards the adventurer, and where on good days, one might as well be in the Seychelles, the Caribbean, or on the ice-white sands of Thailand with their deep blue seas beyond. In fact, the Thai Tourist Board had their metaphorical advertising wrists slapped a few years ago for doing just that.

And in 2002, the Royal Mail issued a set of 10 first-class stamps of the British coastline, one of which was taken by Richard Cooks from 1000ft up in a helicopter of the iconic sands of Luskentyre. 27p… now that seems a steal… But let us return to the sabre-rattling era of the mid 1930s and meet 26-year old Gerard Zucher, a scientist born in Austria who had already received much acclaim for his work on solid-fuel rockets to be used for peaceful means. His aim was to transfer dispatches across the Channel in his rockets, but before the British Government would let him loose near Dover and towards mainland Europe, he had to prove his worth in the Outer Hebrides away from prying eyes. The location chosen was the tiny village of Huisnish across a half mile stretch of water to the barren island of Scarp, and with a capacity crowd of 100 curious, yet unconvinced islanders and a smattering of press gathered, the trials began. Some 30,000 pieces of mail were compressed into that first canister which exploded soon after take off, turning those letters into singed confetti which blew out across the water. A few survived and now command huge value for those who are interested. But the next paradigm had been set and as Hollywood moved in to tell the story, Luskentyre beach and the beautiful island of Taransay (we’ll skip over the ground-breaking Castaway in 2000 which was also located there) were chosen for the film. And after one further unsuccessful trial, Zucker headed back to mainland Europe and to the political difficulties that lay ahead. Somewhere deep down in the Scottish psyche though, the ground had been laid that this part of the UK could marry up isolation with innovation.

And so to 2024, to the tiny Scottish island Unst (Shetland) which has become the UK’s first spaceport for vertical rocket launches. SaxaVord Spaceport has been given approval from the Civil Aviation Authority to begin orbital launches. It will be the first fully-licensed spaceport in Western Europe able to launch vertically, permitting up to 30 launches a year that will be used to take satellites and other payload into space. Scotland currently has five further proposed spaceports under development, with the Sutherland Spaceport also under construction with ambitions of launching 12 rockets into orbit per year. North Uist, Glasgow Prestwick and Spaceport Machrihanish will follow after that.

It would appear that this isolated Western Coastline for the UK is ideal for such technological innovation and development, and starting out on that trail are our intrepid CANSAT pupils at LWC.THE CANSAT competition (ESA – CanSat) created by the European Space Agency is a simulation of a real satellite, integrated within the volume and shape of a soft drink can which our pupils design and build. CanSat is a type of rocket payload used to teach space technology. It is similar to the technology used in miniaturized satellites. No CanSat has ever left the atmosphere, nor orbited the Earth, though the competition sees real launches and data collection which is transmitted back to ground. It is quite fantastic to see our pupils embracing the world of STEAM each week. Some for sure, will have a future in this world with the space industry in the UK is estimated to be worth £17.5bn and supports about 48,800 jobs at 2,200 firms presently.

CanSat is just one of many such clubs where our pupils get to experience the joy, challenge and frustration of Engineering and Science. Other current events include;

• A thriving Vets and Medics group • Chemists attending twilight practicals at Southampton University • The National Physics Laboratory water rocket challenge for our Juniors • Attendance at European Space Agency webinars – what is takes to become an astronaut • Pupil-led robotics club • Dissection club • Diagnosing animals and patients in problem-based learning, as well as practicing suturing skills • Plans to enter a Lego league

And with the Flowers Science Centre in full operation and a future application to build the C3i centre (Art, design and Computer Science all melded together) brewing in 2024, a raft of superb Science staff and an ever-growing set of parents and Sternians involved in this sector and willing to share their expertise, the future looks exciting indeed for the next generation of scientific and technological explorers. And who knows, we may even have our first astronaut currently attending LWC…and I bet they have watched Interstellar and, I hope, 2001: Space Odyssey. Fingers crossed they skipped Ad Astra.